salon.com - 4/16/2009
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On Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice released four memos produced by its Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration, all of which provide justification for CIA interrogation methods, some of which -- like waterboarding -- constitute torture. Salon has made all of ...
Obama's Moment Of Truth On Torture
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com 4/15/2009 — The question before the president today is not whether to prosecute his predecessors for war crimes; it is simply whether to allow the memos that the Bush administration drew up describing in gruesome detail the torture techniques they authorized ...
The Bush "Torture" Memos: Release Or Redact
politics.theatlantic.com 4/15/2009 — Tomorrow, the Department of Justice plans to
release largely underacted versions of three Bush-era memorandums
that critics suspect contain legal justification for torture and the broad use
of executive power during wartime, according to an ...
Obama to Release Damning New Bush Torture Memos
librarygrape.com 4/16/2009 — This is one of the best signs of change I can think of : After a tense internal debate , the Obama administration this afternoon will make public a number of detailed memos describing the harsh interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency against al Qaeda suspects in secret ...
Releasing the torture memos
washingtonmonthly.com 4/16/2009 — RELEASING THE TORTURE MEMOS.... There's been consider behind-the-scenes wrangling between the Justice Department and intelligence agencies over the potential release of Bush-era torture memos. It looks like Holder, accountability, and transparency, ...
Here Are The Torture Memos
politics.theatlantic.com 4/16/2009 — http://72.3.233.244/pdfs/safefree/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf -- a Top Secret memo by OLC's Jay Bybee to CIA counsel John Rizzo about torture techniques used on Abu Zubaydah, August 1, 2001. ...
Transparency -- with a catch
washingtonmonthly.com 4/16/2009 — TRANSPARENCY -- WITH A CATCH.... Following up on an earlier item, the good news is, the White House is apparently doing the right thing and releasing the torture memos from the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel, which had authorized...
CIA Officers Granted Immunity From Torture Prosecution
politics.theatlantic.com 4/16/2009 — President Obama has endorsed this concept, and so has his attorney general, but today, alongside the release of Bush-era documents justifying the CIA torture program, the Justice Department will make clear that no CIA officers or officials who relied ...
The Fix Is In
commentsfromleftfield.com 4/16/2009 — Barack Obama has made his decision :
Four DOJ memos will be released , unredacted except for the names of the CIA interrogators who carried out the torture.
CIA personnel who tortured detainees using, among other techniques, the partial ...
Torture Memos Released
tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com 4/16/2009 — Here are the OLC torture memos just released by the Justice Department...
An 18-page memo [PDF], dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
A 46-page memo [PDF], dated May 10, ...
Torture Memos Admit Techniques Were Condemned By State Dept.
librarygrape.com 4/16/2009 — I've been reading the recently released Bush torture memos and am feeling sick to my stomach. The scariest part was highlighted by Glenn Greenwald (click to enlarge): This excerpt basically admits that most of the techniques the OLC lawyers are approving are routinely condemned by our own State ...
For The Record
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com 4/17/2009 — No mention of the torture memos appears right now on the Drudge Report (which provides news of a prank at Dominos pizza), Instapundit (which mentions the new DVD for the Lord of The Rings trilogy), Pajamas Media, or Michelle Malkin. They are reacting ...
Quote of the Day: Olbermann on Torture Memos
librarygrape.com 4/17/2009 — Here's a quote from Keith Olbermann on the horrors revealed in the latest Bush torture memos : It is good to say 'We won't do it again.' It is not, however, enough.
Bush’s Willing Torturers? OLC Revelations Demand Investigation
attackerman.firedoglake.com 4/17/2009 —
photo by craigmorsels
These are medieval documents, these Office of Legal Counsel memos. And not just in the sense that torture techniques like the waterboard date back to medieval times , but in the way that the OLC acted for the CIA. These ...
A Controlled Acute Episode
anonymousliberal.com 4/17/2009 — I wish I had more time to write about the truly revolting Bush administration torture memos that were released today . They really need to be required reading for everyone. I think the line that probably sums them up best is on page 11 of the Bybee ...
Torture
mahablog.com 4/17/2009 — By now you’ve heard the Obama Administration released the memos used by the Bush Administration to justify torture. As Digby says ,
This is the very definition of the banality of evil — a dry, legalistic series of justifications for acts of barbaric cruelty.
Many are angry that ...
Justice Department Releases Bush Administration Torture Memos
michaelyon-online.com 4/17/2009 — 17 April 2009 Bradbury And Bybee Memos Are Released In Response To Long-Running ACLU Lawsuits (4/16/2009) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org NEW YORK – In response to litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties ...
Bush Torture Memos Released By Obama: See The Complete Documents
huffingtonpost.com 4/17/2009 — As part of an ongoing court case, the Department of Justice released on Thursday memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005, detailing techniques used for interrogation of terrorism suspects. In doing so, President Obama ...
Obama Releasing Four Torture Memos
tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com 4/17/2009 — In a statement from President Obama, the administration announced that it would release four of the Bush Justice Department memos justifying harsh interrogation techniques that had been sought in an ACLU lawsuit.
One of the memos is from 2002, the ...
Bybee's Torture Memo: Time to Impeach?
WWW.samefacts.com 4/17/2009 — Amidst the uproar over the torture memos, it's important not to lose sight of a crucial fact: its responsible author, Jay S. Bybee, is now a federal appeals court judge.
Thus, apart from any issue of criminal prosecution, he can be impeached by the ...
More Things That Are Missing —
Obsidian Wings
by hilzoy A couple of other things that are missing from the torture memos : First , the memos cite various legal precedents for the definition of torture. They are particularly fond of Mehinovic v. Vuckovic , which involved "a course of conduct that included severe beatings to the ...
Torture: The Bureaucracy In Action —
Obsidian Wings
by hilzoy I will have a lot more to say about the torture memos later tonight. For now, though, I just want to echo this point by Andrew Sullivan , which is very, very important. He's contrasting the Bradbury memos from 2005 to the Bybee memo from 2002: "What is far more important and far ...
Torture: Looking Forward By Cleaning Up The Past —
Firedoglake
President Obama did an amazingly important thing by releasing the torture memos . In his statement, he made a commitment not to prosecute those were following the law that these memos established -- but he was silent on the subject of the lawyers who wrote the laws, and the those in the ...
Torture Supporters Make Up Evidence To Support Torture —
Wonk Room
In the wake of the release of the OLC torture memos , right-wing torture supporters have been insisting all over cable that torture works. For example, torture supporters Marc Thiessen and Cliff May:
MARC THIESSEN on FOX: The dirty little secret of this [”enhanced ...
James Zogby: Torture Memos -- Next Step —
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com
Despite some domestic criticism, the President was correct in releasing the largely un-redacted Bush era "torture memos". If we are a nation of laws, then all must be held accountable before the law. The memos are, on the one hand, horrifying in their cold and near ruthless attention to the ...
Rush Limbaugh Slaps Himself Silly —
Politics Daily
Or, to put it another way, "Rush Limbaugh Slaps Himself." In the second hour of Rush Limbaugh's radio show today, Rush Limbaugh fulfilled the wishes of many on the left by applying the smackdown to himself. Huffington Post has the transcript : LIMBAUGH: *SLAP* I just slapped myself! *SLAP* ...
Dispatches from an Alternate Universe —
The Anonymous Liberal
Here's David Rivkin's take on the torture memos, posted at The Corner: The conclusions OLC memos reach — that the specific interrogation techniques used by the CIA did not constitute torture — are eminently reasonable. To any fair-minded observer, these memoranda definitively establish that the ...
The torture memos and the long, slow path to justice —
Newshoggers.com
by Jay McDonough Note: I see I have a slightly different take than Steve (his is directly below) on yesterday's release of Bush Admininistration torture memos. Here's my post on the subject: Yesterday, just prior to the release of four Bush Administration
memos outlining the use of torture, ...
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The Rude Pundit
A Dozen Random Thoughts Upon Reading the Released Torture Memos : The Rude Pundit scribbled these while reading all four of the newly declassified torture technique memos : 1. This is all such cuntish ass covering. Almost comically legalistic, they repeat the phrase "you have informed us," so ...
Time to Become a Card-Carrying Member —
Obsidian Wings
by publius I'm still digesting the torture memos and commentary, but Glenn speaks the truth here: Finally, it should be emphasized -- yet again -- that it was not our
Congress, nor our media, nor our courts that compelled disclosure of
these memos. Instead, it was the ACLU's tenacious ...
Where is the conservative outrage at the torture memos? —
The Moderate Voice
Taking a brief glance over at Memeorandum I can’t help but notice the radio silence from the Right on the release of the Bush OLC torture memos. Andrew Sullivan made the same point earlier today. The biggest voices on the right - Malkin, Instapundit, Drudge - have said absolutely nothing ...
Rebarbative Memos —
Discourse.net
The ACLU has obtained four critical OLC torture memos as a result of a FOIA request.
Glen Greenwald has some key excerpts.
They are simply disgusting.
President Obama’s statement accompanying the release states, “this is a time for reflection, not retribution.”
...
The Doctors —
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
One thing is also increasingly clear from the torture memos: medical professionals were indeed present throughout the torture sessions, carefully monitoring and measuring the health and suffering of the torture victims. There is no conceivable way in which this is compatible with the ...
Redactions —
Obsidian Wings
by hilzoy I am presently reading through the torture memos that the Obama administration released today. I will comment on them when I have had a chance to work through and digest them. I do want to say one thing now, though. Yesterday, various news outlets began reporting that these memos ...
Truth and No Consequences: Torture Memos Released —
Crooks and Liars
Link:
The Obama administration on Thursday released controversial memos outlining the legal rationale for interrogation techniques the Central Intelligence Agency used against terror suspects apprehended overseas, and vowed not to prosecute those that carried out what the administration ...
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